Final Thoughts...

Gomez here...

Since Mike and JLee have posted some of their final thoughts on the men's basketball season, I thought I'd do the same, although I'm a couple of days late to the wake. That's fitting though, because I needed a couple of days to let this soak in and to gain some true perspective on what just took place over the past five months or so. So here we go... Gomez's final thoughts.

On the West Virginia Game...
Our poor free throw shooting cost us the game, period. We played like junk, but still only lost by seven. Meanwhile, we missed 13 free throws. Sure, we also shot 12% from 3 point range (4 out of 32), turned the ball over 16 times, and only managed 10 assists, but if we hit our free throws at a better percentage, we win this game. Our suspect free throw shooting was going to catch us eventually, and it finally did on Saturday.

West Virginia was by far the best team we'd played all year, and our young Cats weren't ready for them. We came out with that little run in the first half, took a seven point lead, and it looked like another blow out could be in the works. However, the Mountaineers came back with great shooting, tough defense, and confident energy. In other words, they didn't roll over a play dead for us, and because of that, our team got knocked back on their heels a little bit. Even Coach Cal admitted that our lack of experience was very apparent for the first time since early in the season. Our freshmen just picked the wrong time to play like freshmen.

On the NCAA Tournament as a whole...
I'm still angry about Duke's cake walk to the Final Four. They played Pine Bluff, Cal, Purdue and Baylor. What a joke. Duke was the fourth #1 seed, therefore, should have received the hardest path to the Final Four, not the easiest. West Virginia should have been their #2 seed, not Kentucky's. There's no excuse for our poor play against WVU, but still, Duke's bye to the Final Four is confusing, frustrating, and down right wrong. I hope West Virginia beats them by 50 points on Saturday, sending the rat back to his hole for a few months.

On Kentucky's impressive season...

:: 35-3 overall record
:: 14-2 SEC record
:: SEC regular season Champs
:: SEC Tournament Champs
:: Cancun Challenge Champs
:: SEC Player of the Year: John Wall
:: SEC Fresman of the Year: DeMarcus Cousins
:: John Wall and DeMarcus: First Team All-America (AP)

Those are just a few of the accomplishments this year's team can boast, just one year removed from an NIT appearance. To be mad or sad about not making the Final Four or winning it all would be silly and immature. As Coach Cal said after the game, an awesome foundation has been laid, and Kentucky basketball is once again heading in the right direction. Its been too long since we could say that, so lets not pout too long, folks...

It's only about 200 days, 7 hours, 56 minutes and 7 seconds until Midnight Madness 2010, and then we'll get to do this all over again.

I, for one, can't wait.